‘The Poet of Weather Cams’: How one man’s obsession for capturing nature’s drama on Puget Sound became a worldwide online hit

Originally published April 17, 2017 at 6:00 am
Updated April 17, 2017 at 12:24 pm

From his home along Skunk Bay in Hansville, Greg Johnson documents weather’s drama. “What really jazzes me up is realizing there is something that big and powerful. I’m just amazed by the power and vastness that Mother Nature puts in front of us,” he says. (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)

Greg Johnson’s Skunk Bay Weather website at the northern tip of Kitsap County has thousands of fans, including the U.S. Department of Defense Network.

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HANSVILLE, Kitsap County — It’s not something you’d think of as visual poetry, but here they are, at the home of Greg Johnson. Weather webcams.

He has four cameras in a wooden box nailed outside the second-story bedroom of his family home. He used shims to line up the cameras just so to have a straight-out view to Admiralty Inlet. Every container and cruise ship coming to Seattle goes through here.

The main cameras — three Olympus SP-500s — are working 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

They take a picture every 20 seconds during the day, and at night about every 40 seconds because of the extended exposure time.

So far Johnson has accumulated something like 12.5 million images for his Skunk Bay Weather site.

The poetry comes not only in his collection of stunning color images of sunsets, sunrises, clouds, storms, asteroids, lightning and rainbows, but in time-lapse videos in which Johnson can compress three hours into 18 seconds.

When Johnson added a Canon T3 camera with its higher definition to his webcam collection, he started producing quite astounding and detailed images of the night sky.

He says proudly, “It was a big step. With the other cameras you see a smattering of stars. With this one the sky is full of stars. It picks up everything.”

Regular viewers of the videos have gotten used to seeing the 30-foot flagpole on the left side, and a madrona tree in the middle. They give perspective to the big storms as they sway.

Since he started the site in 2006, Johnson has built up an avid following in this region, and worldwide.

One fan is University of Washington weather guru Cliff Mass.

“I love the guy. I call him ‘The Poet of Weather Cams,’ ” Mass says.

Mass has Johnson play his time-lapse videos as the finale at the annual Pacific Northwest Weather Workshop.

Up to then, the weather aficionados have been listening to talks about subjects such as “Stratiform Precipitation Processes.”

Then the videos show thundering weather in all its glory.

“He puts music to them. They’re so profoundly moving that some people start crying before they’re over,” says Mass.

Followers of Greg Johnson’s website include not only weather buffs but also the CIA and NSA. (Provided by Greg Johnson)

‘Ground truth’

On a slow day, skunkbayweather.com gets 500 hits. When a big storm comes through it can jump to 4,000 hits a day. (His location got its name in 1792 when the Vancouver Expedition came across the odoriferous animals and wrote about their “intolerable stench.”)

Sometimes Johnson finds out after the fact that a media outlet has used one of his videos. Back in 2012 he noticed he was gaining French followers. It turned out that Huffington Post France featured one of his lightning time lapses.

His regular fans also include the Navy, the U.S. Department of Defense Network, the National Weather Service and operators of small planes. Johnson says he can tell that from the IP addresses — the unique strings of numbers that identify a computer — that are accessing his site.

Perhaps the Department of Defense has people interested in the poetry of weather.

More likely is that Skunk Bay Weather is one of the most complete weather sites around, feeding 24/7 information from embedded links to real-time marine traffic worldwide to weather satellite images.

The webcams provide “ground truth on what is happening in the area including where the Puget Sound convergence zone is often born,” says Ted Buehner, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service here.

More than a hobby

Johnson is 65, retired from working as an IT director and in finances for Town & Country Markets.

He remembers exactly when he became interested in all things weather. He was in fifth grade at Magnolia Elementary when the Columbus Day storm of Oct. 12, 1962, hit the Northwest. Winds of 83 mph were recorded in Seattle.

Johnson remembers the teacher only as “Miss Smith.”

“She spent the day talking about the storm, what it was like being in a windstorm, how to prepare,” he says.

Teachers never know when the enthusiasm they show for a subject might somehow stick with a kid for decades.

Nicci Johnson, his wife of four decades, stoically puts up with his passion.

Her husband’s weather system runs on six computers. They have a 6,500-watt generator in case the power goes out. They have two internet connections.

“I need Comcast for blazing-fast internet to push up a ton of materials. But two or three times a year, when there is a big storm, the power goes out and Comcast goes, ‘Bye.’ Then I roll over to CenturyLink, which is slower but way more stable,” says Johnson.

The mud room of Greg Johnson’s Hansville home has become weather central for his efforts at recording conditions at Skunk Bay. On some days he spends 8 to 10 hours on the project. (Dean Rutz / The Seattle Times)

Johnson begins his day with some coffee and looking over the previous night’s images. He says he typically spends two hours a day on his site.

“On big days, it’s 8 to 10 hours,” says Johnson.

He says, “What really jazzes me up is realizing there is something that big and powerful. I’m just amazed by the power and vastness that Mother Nature puts in front of us.”